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Want to learn more about our academic degree programs? Take a look at our Master of Divinity, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Ministry programs. Plus, learn about our unique Training & Mentoring program.

This Student Life section is the one-stop shop for students to get connected to activities that will feed your spiritual and social life as well as equip you with resources to jump-start your academic career.

Being a part of our Denver Seminary community is about connection. Whether you are an alumni, donor, or friend of the Seminary, we want to stay in touch and hope you'll take part in our programs and events.

Denver Seminary has a wealth of resources that are available to current students, alumni, and the local community. Here you will find access to the Denver Journal, Engage Magazine, and the various initiatives organized by the Seminary.

This
is the fourth annual installment of a superb new series entitled "The
McMaster New Testament Studies," designed to address key topics of
biblical scholarship and particularly biblical theology in a form that
is accessible to lay people while reflecting state-of-the-art academic
studies. Although the parables of Jesus have produced a voluminous
flood of literature, little of it, particularly from an evangelical
viewpoint, remains in print at the start of this new millennium, so
this volume is a welcome contribution. Not all the authors are
"card-carrying evangelicals" but all are right-of-center across the
whole theological spectrum. All but four are well established in their
fields. Three of the remaining four are up-and-coming scholars
associated with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The "odd man
out" is Stephen Wright, director of the College of Preachers in London.

The
first of four main sections of the book treats the "history, genre, and
parallels" of the parables. Klyne Snodgrass offers a very helpful,
succinct overview of the history of interpretation, especially in the
modern period, and notes how we have come full circle from one ancient
form of allegorizing to a more cautious and legitimate modern form.
Robert Stein deals with the genre question. He, too, recognizes, though
with much less enthusiasm, the need for limited allegory but is more
concerned properly to stress that parables contain both an informative
dimension and an affective one (against various strands of
interpretation that have tended to stress only one of these at the
expense of the other). Craig Evans offers an excellent survey of Old
Testament, intertestamental and the very earliest rabbinic parables,
noting both similarities and differences with those of Jesus.

Part
two also contains three chapters, one for each of the Synoptics, on
their distinctive perspective on kingdom parables. Morna Hooker offers
the chapter on Mark, summarizing many of the themes found in her
Black's commentary. Above all, these parables confront us with the
demand to bear fruit, to find salvation in the person of Jesus himself
and to trust that the kingdom will come in its fullness despite present
appearances to the contrary. Donald Hagner, author of an even more
detailed WBC commentary on Matthew, surveys the parables of Matthew 13
in mini-commentary form, noting particularly their function as forming
a major turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Following the Jews'
widespread rejection of Jesus' message of the kingdom, "He makes use of
teaching devices that could both conceal and reveal the mysteries of
that kingdom" (p. 122). Least helpful in this section is the editor's
own contribution, on Luke, not so much because of the study itself but
because Luke's explicit kingdom parables are only three in number and
not all contained in one segment of Luke's gospel. It is a bit odd,
given the widespread recognition that most if not all of Jesus'
parables are about the kingdom whether or not the word "kingdom"
appears explicitly, that this symposium should treat only Mark 4 and
parallels according to the distinctive theology and interests of the
three synoptic evangelists, while proceeding in the remaining two
portions of the volume to group parables from all three gospels
together in broader thematic categories.

But that is how part
three proceeds. Allan Martens studies the stories of Matthew
21:28-22:14 and Luke 13:6-9, under the heading of parables of judgment
against the Jewish religious leaders and nations. More so than most of
the other contributors to this volume, Martens separates off
distinctive (and apparently unhistorical) redaction on the part of each
evangelist, while nevertheless aptly summing up the theological
emphases throughout. R. T. France elaborates on the parable of the
sheep and the goats and its larger context in lines already familiar to
readers of his Tyndale commentary on Matthew. But it cannot be stressed
often enough that the "brothers" of Matthew 25:31-46 are fellow
Christians, in light of widespread expositions to the contrary in
today's age.

Finally, part four, under the heading of God's
love and forgiveness, includes a chapter on the parables of Luke 15 by
Stephen Barton. Barton is particularly interested to demonstrate that
these parables do not present what Bonhoeffer calls "cheap grace."
Stephen Wright proceeds to unpack the three Lukan parables on poverty
and riches, depending too exclusively on Herzog's somewhat
idiosyncratic interpretations. He nevertheless well underlines the
warnings against having too much that "can destroy that
humanity-in-relationship that is our greatest treasure" (p. 238).
Walter Liefeld also deals with a trio of Lukan parables--on prayer--and
deftly navigates the difficult exegetical problem surrounding the
anaideia of Luke 11:8. He concludes that this "shamelessness" is
ascribed to the petitioner but only as a means of directing attention
to the man in bed, who will deal with and vindicate this behavior. Had
Brad Young's new work on the parables come out in time for Liefeld to
use it, he would have found confirmation in Young's appropriation of
the Yiddish concept of chutzpah as a dynamic equivalent rendering.
Sylvia Keesmaat deals with the parables of the unforgiving servant, the
great banquet and the good Samaritan with particularly poignant
contemporary applications. We must remember that forgiveness of sins
and forgiveness of debts were not separated in the ancient world, that
those who wish to partake of Jesus' new kingdom must be willing to join
at table all kinds of people they had never expected to have to
associate with, and that in order to be righteous we are called "to go
and do the likes of what an immoral Samaritan would do" (p. 282).
Finally, Michael Knowles deals with a smattering of parables on
discipleship--the two builders, the tower builder and warring king, the
unworthy servant and the laborers in the vineyard. Here only the
vaguest of themes--proper response to God's kingdom--unify the
disparate material chosen.

Each author is asked to conclude
his or her chapter with a select bibliography of no more than sixteen
works. These are generally extremely well chosen, although Martens did
manage to sneak a seventeenth into his list! Otherwise, the chapters
have no footnotes or endnotes but put parenthetical notes into the text
itself. In several instances this material is quite full, but in the
majority of cases is kept to a minimum and does not distract from the
author's flow of thought. Subject, author and scripture indexes (along
with other ancient literature) round out the volume. While some
articles are inevitably a little stronger than others, overall the
quality is superb, the authors are well-versed in the issues of
contemporary parable scholarship, communicate them in a very clear and
direct fashion and offer incisive applications for our contemporary
church and world. One hopes that anthologies of this quality continue
to emerge in this series for many years to come.